Information for new members

The Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (CRA) is housed within the School of Physics. We are part of Georgia Tech’s Space Research Initiative (SRI). The center’s mission is to provide students with education and training in the key research areas of astroparticle physics, theoretical astrophysics, and gravitational wave astrophysics. As of September 2024, we are 11 academic faculty, 3 research faculty, 5 postdocs, 7 adjunct faculty and affiliates, 30 graduate students, and approximately 25 undergraduate researchers. We are located in three buildings – Howey, Boggs, and Klaus.

Regular events

  • CRA Seminars: most Thursdays at 3:30pm
  • Cosmic Coffee: every Wednesday at 3:30pm
    • Location: Howey Interaction Zone (next to front office)
    • Journal club and 30-minute research presentations
    • Sign up for our journal club entry in benty-fields to recommend papers for discussion
    • If you would like to present a research talk, please contact the organizer for a link to the planning spreadsheet
    • Organizer: Chi-Ho (Edwin) Chan (until mid-September)
  • School of Physics Colloquia: every Monday at 3:30pm
  • CRA Director’s Lunch: every first Friday of the month (Fall 2024) for CRA graduate students
    • The Director emails the grad mailing list a few days beforehand with a lunch location poll and sign-up

Communication channels

  • Mailing lists:
    • Individual lists for faculty (cra-faculty), postdocs (cra-postdocs), grad students (cra-grads), and undergrad students (cra-undergrads)
    • Seminar announcements (cra-seminar). All four lists above receive these emails. If you are not a CRA member and are interested, please contact Director John Wise.
    • Add the name in parentheses to @lists.gatech.edu
    • Sending permissions are restricted to list members and academic faculty
    • We are using a sunsetting listserv (lists.gatech.edu; restricted to campus and VPN) and will be moving to Outlook Groups in the near future
    • Due to these restrictions with the old listserv, email Director John Wise (jwise [ at ] gatech.edu) to be added
  • Slack: We use the School of Physics enterprise-level workgroup (gtphysics.slack.com) for direct messages and Cosmic Coffee announcements (#cosmiccoffee). All other announcements are made through the mailing lists.

Office space, building access, and websites

  • For physical keys and Buzzcard access for doors, please contact your supervisor
  • For any building issues (e.g. cleaning, locked out, maintenance), please contact the building manager – Alan Pruitt (Howey) or Mike Riley (Boggs)
  • 1st year graduate students move to their more permanent offices in the summer after your 1st academic year. If your supervisor is located in Boggs, Director Wise will coordinate your new office space. Otherwise, your supervisor will coordinate your move.
  • If you are a new member (grad students and more senior), please send Shaun Ashley (shaun.ashley [ at ] gatech.edu) a headshot to be added to the member list on the CRA website.
  • For the School of Physics website, a profile is initialized when you log in the first time (link at the page footer). You can modify it through a “edit” tab in your profile page that is accessed through the People page. Contact ARCS for further support.

Last updated: Wise (September 2024)